Reporter’s Notebook: Open-book rehearsal is over

After another week and a half of blocking, we finally did a complete run-through of "Beauty and the Beast" from start to finish, with singing and choreography, this week. As of the writing of this column, we hadn't done it yet, so I'm just going to say that it was perfect and we're awesome and we can all stay home until opening night.

Not really. In reality, while we are all awesome, a lot of us will probably forget where we're supposed to go in the scenes we haven't practiced in two weeks, and I'm certain that we're going to miss some notes on some of the chorus songs. (At least I will.) But we'll run through the show again and again — including once this Saturday, which thankfully ends in time for me to catch the Texas A&M-Alabama game; my interests tend to conflict — and it will only get better, and eventually, as it always does, it will come together into a beautiful production.

We're aiming to be totally off-script next week, which means all those little movements and notes we're forgetting this week will need to be concreted into our memories quickly. We are, after all, just three weeks away from opening night.

That's a little intimidating, to be honest. But the exciting thing, as our director Marisa Post put it about a week ago, is that this is when the show will really begin to come alive: We'll start getting into character more. Our dance steps will start to look more natural as muscle memory starts to take over. Our scenes will run more smoothly and we'll finally focus on the little things that give a show personality.

And with all the awesome personalities involved in this one, I'm expecting a lot.

Some of us have tried on our costumes by now as well. The most interesting ones are the ones that actually had to be constructed — a sort of wooden skirt on wheels for the Wardrobe and a table with a hole in it, also with wheels, for Chip. Yeah. How would you like to roll around in one of those and sing and dance?

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Jill Beathard is anxiously waiting to see what a human plate looks like. For more information about Aspen Community Theatre's production of "Beauty and the Beast," visit http://www.aspencommunitytheatre.com.